


Such Unholy Heaving

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures, The Midnight Crew - Fandom
Genre: Blood, Blood Drinking, Dubious Consent, Humanstuck, I suppose?, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Vampires, etc etc you get it, goodbye folks, pwp blood things basically, yeah that's a thing, yes i know that i'm a garbage can thank you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 15:59:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11107929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Droog hasn't been eating of late.(concept where Droog is a vampire and Slick has to help him with the rough time that he's having)





	Such Unholy Heaving

**Author's Note:**

> i really tried to edit this time but again like there's not much extra effort i'm willing to put in when i've already been staring at this fic for so long so i hope that you enjoy it anyways folks, xox

_Vmmmm._

Midday in the Midnight Crew hideout, and the only noise to be heard is the grinding whir of the vacuum cleaner. It’s cool, the concrete walls effectively shielding those within them from the rabid pre-solstice heat that’s busy destroying all signs of moisture to be found in the city. Slick finds himself staring at the Crew’s rooms from his seat on the couch, his fingers drumming on the armrest. Deuce is busy vacuuming the rug around Slick’s feet, and Boxcars is out getting groceries. Slick has yet to decide a mission for them, and this is where he typically sits to think of one. It should be mundane. This whole scene should be perfectly normal; in fact, there is no situation that Slick can think of that is more average than this one, considering the common turmoil of him and his partners’ day-to-day-lives.

But it’s not.

Suddenly, Slick springs up, rocking from his heels to his toes and then standing still to scrutinize their doors some more. More specifically, the door of one particular man who is very absent from this otherwise ordinary day. Deuce starts, yanking the vacuum back from the spot he was about to clean, which is now occupied by an immobile Slick. “Sir?” he asks tremulously, and from his tone Slick knows that Deuce feels the lack of Droog’s presence as well as he does.

Slick is silent for a moment before replying to the rest of the question, the part that remains unvoiced. “I’m not boutta just fuckin’ sit here, Clubs. He ain’t comin’ out.”

“You’re gonna…?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna.” He pauses. Looking down, and seeing Deuce’s worried expression, he allows the barest amount of warmth to color his voice. “Stay out here.” He claps the smaller man on the shoulder before walking up to the red diamond that hovers above Droog’s threshold. Strangely enough, when he tries the doorknob, it turns with ease. Unlocked. Figuring that knocking will be a waste of time, he casts one more glance back at Deuce, then he cautiously cracks the door and enters.

If the rest of the hideout is merely cool, then Diamonds Droog’s room is straight out of the ice age. All the lights are off, and the air feels as it does in a room uninhabited, stagnant and damp. It smells unpleasantly tangy, like tooth decay, but sharper. Any lesser man would recoil from the stench that gets stronger as Slick creeps his way farther in--but Slick is no lesser man, and this is certainly not the worst smell he’s ever encountered. A low hiss sounds from the darkest corner, right in between Droog’s night table and the wall; when Slick flips the lightswitch, the hiss evolves into an angry snarl, gritty and frothy with dry-mouthed saliva. “ _Turn it off!_ ” snaps the huddled lump that Slick can only assume is Droog, and just before he does Slick catches a glimpse of yellowed, blood-shot eyes, and skin that is almost grey with blue veins pressed hard against the surface.

“Christ, you look like shit.”

“Close the door.”

“It’s pitch fuckin’ black in here. I can’t see if I close the door.”

“Slick. Close. The. Door.”

“Alright! Alright, I’m closing the damned door.” Slick shuts the door behind him before turning around, scowl invisible in the dark. He’s just about ready to make a biting comment when he hears Droog move. There’s a _skritch,_ and a match flares into existence, floating through the blackness to light a candle atop the night table. Instinctually, Slick approaches it, drawing closer until he’s able to view his second-in-command. And the second he does, his jaw clenches in frustrated dread.

Droog, eyes squinted against the tiny pool of illumination that the flame casts, sits with his back to the wall. He looks sick. Very sick. It may be dim, but Slick can now see the deep, cracked furrows in his second's lips, and the greasy disarray that is his hair, and the deep purple shadows that frame his hollow gaze. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, you _really_ look like shit.” Distantly, Slick hears the _vmmmmm_ of Deuce continuing to clean. He sits slowly on the edge of Droog’s bed, watching as he tries to disguise the fact that he’s shifting away from his leader. When no response comes, Slick wastes little time addressing the elephant in the room. “Look, I know yer not eatin’. I’m not an idiot.”

For a second, the old Droog comes out, his eyes flashing with indignant anger. He draws himself up slightly, as if to make a move, but he simply straightens his back against the wall. “How do you know?”

“What, aside from lookin’ at your beat-up-ass face right now? I know cause you been doin’ the same thing. Every night. Every night when we got back you’d storm back inta this room and hide out. No talking unless ya have yer ass backed into it, no rehash of plans. No cup of coffee and a cigarette in the kitchen. You just close that fuckin’ door in all our faces. Every damned night. You think I didn’t see that? You think you could come back out lookin’ as if you ain’t slept in twelve years and I wouldn’t see that neither? And when we finished up the raid, and you just up and decided to not come out at all, ya thought we all wouldn’t notice? I honestly thought you had more brains than that.”

“I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“ _Diamonds._ ”

“Yes?”

“Do ya _really think_ you’re boutta _lie_ to me about this?”

That shuts Droog up. His brow is furrowed as he stares up at Slick, and Slick glowers right back at him. Slick can see Droog’s mouth working as he bites down on his tongue, on the inside of his cheeks, teeth grinding together in irritation. Then, after a moment, the expression on his face changes, wearily resigned. “I thought...” Droog lets out a defeated sigh. “I can control it. I’m controlling it.”

“You can control needin’ ta feed yerself? That’s a new one.”

“It’s not _just_ feeding myself.”

“Can ya _stop?”_ A pause, for effect. “Fuckin’--you’re a fuckin’ _monster,_ Droog! You’re stone-cold, and that’s a _fact._ All four a’ us know it. With or without this...” Slick makes an unspecific gesture. “This _thing_ you got, we all know who you are! Ya really think killin’ people for...for food is any different than the shit you normally pull?”

“It’s not about that.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but ya can’t control everythin’, jackass, and that’s just a fact.”

The look Droog gives him says _Damned if I won’t try._

Hesitating ever so slightly, Slick reaches into his pocket and draws out his deck of cards. He selects one and flips it into a short switchblade in his hand. Upon running his thumb lightly down the edge, he is satisfied with the gentle dig into his skin. Of course, he always keeps his weapons at their sharpest. He’d be no kind of gang boss if he didn’t.

“What are you doing?”

Slick looks up at him, blade poised precariously over his wrist. “I’m helping you, you jackass,” he growls.

“Wait. Stop.” Though Slick can see that he’s trying his best not to, Droog shrinks away, flattening as if he could melt into the wallpaper. “You can’t do this.”

“What? What th’ fuck else am I supposed ta do? I’m open to suggestions.” He scowls. Droog seems at a loss. “Later we’ll rob the hospital or somethin’, a’ight? But for now, we ain’t got the time, and I can’t let you sit in a corner and wither away. We all got jobs to do, and yours sure as hell does not involve dying.”

As the knife comes down, a thin “Please don’t” is barely audible, half-whispered into the thick air.

A low, drawn-out expletive escapes him as he expertly slices the skin of his wrist. Not deep enough to sever his main arteries, but welling with a significant amount of red. Breathing deep, Slick moves to examine the damage in the candlelight, and stops when he sees Droog’s expression. Shudders wrack the other man’s body, tendons standing out in his neck. His eyes have gone from half-shut to wide open, with pupils fully dilated. Slick freezes, one predator sizing up another, slit-gazed with cautious calculation. He’s holding his breath, and Droog is too. “Diamonds,” he says, tone low in an attempt at grounding.

Droog breathes in slightly as if to say something, then immediately looks as if he’s going to throw up. The shaking increases. The scent lingering around them is sweet, sickly and heady and heavy, laying on Slick’s shoulders like an intoxicating ton of bricks. He doesn’t remember it changing, slow or quick or not; in fact, he doesn’t think it changed at all. Almost unknowingly, Slick offers the bleeding wrist to his second, hypnotized by his tense movements, watching as those trembling hands reach out to clamp down on his arm with an impossibly strong grip. It seems a herculean effort for Droog to move slowly. For him to keep movements deliberate, for him to prevent himself from ripping Slick apart with his white-knuckled fists. For a second Slick wonders if Droog’s about to break a bone, frozen on the edge of pulling away.

Then Droog’s mouth comes down, and Slick doesn’t wonder about anything anymore.

The angrily guttural noise that Droog breathes into Slick’s flesh goes barely noticed. The second that saliva mixed into the wound, Slick was gone. Cold euphoria shoots from his wrist and through his entire form, pouring its way icily through the ventricles of his fluttering heart. He can feel every rush of blood as it courses its way through his veins and arteries, he can feel where it needles into his flesh, he can feel that delicious numbness in the matter of his lungs as he breathes. He falls back and barely manages to catch himself with his other arm. Tiny lights skitter their way across his throbbing vision as he watches Droog pull himself up protectively over his body, mouth glued to the injury. There is no pain. There is no concern. He’s starting to forget why he’s doing this in the first place. He sits in complacency, eyes rolling back in his head.

Then, the second wave hits him.

His body gives out. His elbow is no longer propping him up. He doesn’t remember when it slipped. Droog hovers above him like a shroud, blocking out what little light there is, frigid and comforting and terrifying, some monstrous thing carved of marble and painted black. Each surge of readily flowing crimson that is drawn into this being’s mouth is alive, embracing the edges of his weal with fond parting, eagerly leaping to touch those teeth, that probing tongue. The world comes in patterns and shapes and color instead of a whole, fed piece by piece to his withering sight. It’s dark. He loves the dark. He’s always loved the dark. It’s made him feel at home in the streets of his twisted city, and he’s decorated every corner of it with as much dark as he could.

Third wave.

Thought comes in tangible vibrations, long and short wavelengths that are indecipherable from time itself. He sees nothing except for Droog. His second-in-command is no longer second to anything. He’s the embodiment of ethereal divinity, fading away as Slick recedes into himself, and yet intimately tied to him by the life-giving blood that he shares. Slick has never considered himself a man easily affected. But as he glassily watches ease smooth the hard lines between Droog’s eyebrows, the sickly shade fading from his face to be replaced by glowing light, he finds himself overcome by awe. He’s physically capable of very little currently, but if he was capable of anything, it would certainly be crying. How blessed he is to feed a god. How blessed he is to have the deepest essence of himself so honored, treated so preciously by such a creature. Within him is some primal urge to rise, to separate his body from his soul, to become so sacred as the thing he once knew as Diamonds Droog; he tries to reach out, to let it know that he’s ready. He’s ready to taste the blood of the seraphic, give up his previous life to become an acolyte to this, to become something more than he ever was. To live together at the apex of existence.

Infinity.

And after infinity, Droog wrenches himself away, retching blood. As quickly as it came, the feeling of otherworldliness is gone, abandoning Slick with a fuzzy head and an overwhelming feeling of weakness. As Droog gags and coughs, pulled back into the corner, Slick looks at the blurred ceiling and sinks farther into the bed. It’s all he can do to keep breathing. A minute passes before he shakes off a small amount of the stupor in realizing what exactly just happened. “I’m...I ain’t boutta...not gonna vamp out, right?” he says sluggishly, tongue leaden.

There’s a pause, and a wet swallow. “No,” comes the hoarse reply.

 _Well, thank Christ._ He really didn’t think of that beforehand. Weighed down by a force that seems to outweigh the planet, he hauls his uninjured extremity over to the injured one, letting his fingers play along the edges of the wound. The distinctive ridges of a hard bite roll out underneath them. Familiar. A replica of bites before, unchanged except for the fact that its deeper. “No fangs?” he jokes feebly. Silence.

The seconds tick by. Time remains distorted, though not nearly as much as before; even still, it drags its feet unwillingly, resentful of its obligation to move. The vacuum cleaner shuts down, leaving silence in the place of the distant white noise. Slick feels himself drifting off to sleep. He gladly accepts it, reaching out to it with open arms, far more tired than he’s ever felt in his entire life. But then, Droog speaks, and he forces himself to remain conscious for it.

“Spades.”

“Mhm.”

“I don’t want to do that ever again.”

A pang of barely comprehensible disappointment strikes. The vibrant joy he had felt but minutes before is a strangely disappearing memory, but some part of him regrets the thought of never feeling it again. But what was it exactly that he had wanted? He’s coming back to his senses now. Disappointment is washed away by shame. How vulnerable he had been. No, he won’t let that happen again. He won’t let his second starve, but he won’t let himself be at his mercy like that another time. “Got it,” he says as he sits up slightly on his forearm, tone now clipped. “We’ll hit that hospital soon.” Standing suddenly, Droog moves to help him, which he waves away. The other man’s mouth is smeared carmine, rivers of spit and blood running down his front. _God, what a mess._ At least he looks better than before. That wasn’t just a hallucination. “Let’s...I gotta get out and tell Deuce that you ain’t boutta die anymore.”

“Don’t get up.”

“Look--”

“I’ll tell him. Just stay here.”

Slick is in no condition to protest. He falls back onto the mattress.

He thinks he sleeps for a second, but when he awakens it’s to the smell of strong coffee. The fetid tanginess from long before is gone. He doesn’t open his eyes, because his eyelids are made of stone. A strip of something is placed into his hand, and when he doesn’t move to see what it is, it’s fed to him. Dried meat. Good protein. His stomach rolls, but he knows that he’s hungry, so he eats. When a mug is offered, his head lifted by a firm hand, he drinks, and it’s straight coffee. No sugar or milk. He tries to fend off the undignified treatment, baring his teeth and voicing the beginning of protests, but it’s pressed on him, until he’s had a decent amount of food and at least a quarter of the cup of coffee. He does feel a little better now.

“Slick, don’t fall asleep.”

He’s both surprised and unsurprised that the one putting him through this is still Droog and not Deuce or Boxcars. “I’m tryin’.”

What comes next is barely more than a murmur, coated in feigned formality, but he can hear the genuine relief underneath. “...Thank you.”

_Thank you._

“Hmm.” Slick smiles faintly, victoriously. “You’re welcome.” 


End file.
